From PRD to Production

An end-to-end guide to building features in regulated fintech environments—without sacrificing speed, clarity, or compliance. 

In fintech, a new feature isn’t just a user story—it’s a regulatory liability, a customer trust milestone, and an infrastructure challenge all at once. Getting from Product Requirements Document (PRD) to a stable release means navigating across product, engineering, compliance, and QA, often while external regulations shift beneath your feet. 

Here’s how we deliver fintech features reliably and with audit-ready clarity. 

 

1. Start with a Collaborative, Living PRD 

A good PRD does more than describe features. It documents assumptions, constraints, compliance context, and traceability. 

At OceanoBe, we treat the PRD as a collaboration space between product managers, BAs, engineers, and compliance officers. It’s versioned, linked to epics in the backlog, and always scoped down to MVP logic before kickoff. 

Key elements we include: 

Problem statement with business KPIs 

Regulatory implications (e.g. KYC, PSD2, PCI-DSS) 

Data flows & APIs involved 

Error handling & edge cases 

Testing and release acceptance criteria 

Tip: Include an “API dependency matrix” to flag how tightly coupled the new feature is to core banking systems or external providers. 

2. Validate Requirements with Tech & Compliance in the Room 

Before development begins, we run cross-functional requirement reviews to align on: 

What’s mandatory vs optional in V1 

Which risks need mitigation plans (e.g. rate limits, false positives in fraud detection) 

What data is stored or transferred—and how it maps to compliance frameworks (GDPR, AML, etc.) 

This ensures backend teams aren’t surprised by front-end expectations, and legal teams aren’t shocked by user flow changes. 

 

3. Implement in Iterative, Auditable Increments 

When working under banking or payments regulation, big bang releases are too risky. We follow an incremental delivery approach, where features: 

Are broken into small, testable components 

Go through sandbox or SIT environments first 

Include versioned API docs and test data contracts 

This allows us to validate as we go, with QA automation triggered via CI/CD and results reported to product and compliance stakeholders. 

 

4. Include QA & UAT as First-Class Citizens 

We bake testing into the feature lifecycle from day one: 

Automation-ready requirements: User flows that can be mapped directly to test cases 

Edge-case coverage defined in PRD, verified in pre-production 

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with business & compliance teams using real scenarios and data 

This approach helps catch gaps between business intent and technical output early. 

 

5. Document for Traceability and Compliance 

When delivering fintech features, documentation isn’t a chore—it’s a shield. 

Every feature is backed by: 

Change logs 

PRD and tech spec links 

Test reports and risk assessments 

Release notes mapped to requirement IDs 

This allows regulators or auditors to follow the journey from requirement to deployment—and helps teams revisit decisions with confidence. 

 

6. Close the Feedback Loop Post-Release 

After release, we monitor: 

Technical performance (latency, errors, retries) 

Business impact (conversion, drop-off, support tickets) 

Regulatory stability (any triggered alerts or required disclosures) 

We hold post-release reviews within 1–2 weeks, asking: Did we build the right thing? Are we still compliant? 

 

Final Thoughts 

In fintech, getting from PRD to production isn’t a straight line—it’s a loop of collaboration, validation, iteration, and accountability. When done right, feature delivery becomes predictable, resilient, and audit-ready, even in the most regulated contexts. 

At OceanoBe, we bring together product strategy, compliance fluency, and deep technical expertise to help fintech platforms ship faster—with less risk and more impact. 

Need a team that knows how to deliver fintech features with speed and confidence? 

Let’s talk!